Here are Society pads,
from about the same time.
See how women wore
a belt (and in a Swedish ad).
See a modern belt
for a washable pad and a page from the 1946-47 Sears catalog
showing a great variety.
Read a Personal Products booklet for older
girls from about this time, The Periodic Cycle
(1938). See similar
booklets on this site.
See a Kotex ad
advertising a Marjorie May booklet.
See many more similar booklets.
See ads for
menarche-education booklets: Marjorie May's Twelfth
Birthday (Kotex, 1932), Tampax
tampons (1970, with Susan Dey), Personal Products
(1955, with Carol Lynley), and German o.b. tampons (lower
ad, 1981)
And read Lynn Peril's series
about these and similar booklets!
Read the full text of the 1935 Canadian edition
of Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday, probably
identical to the American edition.
More ads for teens (see also introductory page for
teenage advertising): Are
you in the know?
(Kotex napkins and Quest napkin powder, 1948,
U.S.A.), Are
you in the know?
(Kotex napkins and belts, 1949, U.S.A.)Are you in the know? (Kotex napkins, 1953, U.S.A.),
Are you in the know? (Kotex napkins and belts,
1964, U.S.A.), Freedom
(1990, Germany), Kotex (1992, U.S.A.), Pursettes (1974, U.S.A.), Pursettes (1974, U.S.A.), Saba (1975, Denmark)
See early tampons
and a list of tampon
on this site - at least the ones I've cataloged.
|
The Museum of Menstruation and Women's
Health
Venus compressed menstrual napkins,
traveling package (1930s - 1940s?, U.S.A.)
Before disposable pads (which
appeared in the late
19th
century in the U.S.A. and in Germany and
England), menstruating women
found traveling troublesome. Where
would they wash and dry their cotton
pads? Sometimes they must have burned
them - if they could afford to. (In
the late 19th century an English
medical journal reported about a
portable menstrual pad burner.)
These pads appear to be all cotton,
not the cellulose of Kotex
(Cellucotton). They must have been
more expensive than Kotex, probably
appealing to a richer clientele.
|
I pulled the end flap
out of the box, showing the
instructions (to avoid standing on
your head, read below).
|
At least two people
wrote on the the back of the box,
above, at an unspecified time,
probably to show a sale price - maybe
well after the 1940s.
|
|
|
The Venus pad, right out of the box. Safety
pins fasten the long ends on either side of the
pad to a napkin
belt (see such a belt,
probably from the 1940s).
See how women wore
a belt (and in a Swedish ad).
See a modern belt
for a washable pad and a page from the
1946-47 Sears catalog
showing a great variety.
© 2006 Harry Finley. It is illegal to
reproduce or distribute any of the work on this
Web site in any manner or
medium without written permission of the author.
Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
|